Also published in: https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/let-it-flow-improving-water-quantity-and-quality-tanzanias-rufiji-river
Water, essential to all life, plays a particularly important role in the lives of Tanzanians residing near the Mbarali River, part of the larger Rufiji River basin. Here, farmers use water from the river to irrigate their crops. Cattle herders guide their animals to its banks to drink and graze. Fishers make a living catching fish from its waters. Still others use it as a place to wash laundry or quench their thirst.
Yet all of these different demands on the river come at a price.
“I have a long memory when it comes to this river,” reminisced Alley Mkweta, a longtime resident and local Water Use Association representative. “This used not to be the only river; we used to have several small tributaries, which now only flow during the wet season.”
“I won’t believe anyone who says that this river will never run dry,” he declared, looking around at a gathering of his fellow Water Use Association representatives. “I’ve seen the river drying up too many times before.”
Indeed, water scarcity has become a pressing problem in the Rufiji basin, raising tensions among the many different people clamoring for access to both its waters and surrounding land. Activities upstream—such as livestock grazing; farming in wetlands or too close to river banks; small-scale irrigation; disposing of waste in the river, and more—have changed the quantity, quality, and timing of the river’s flow patterns.
This uncertainty has caused problems for both upstream and downstream residents. Water Use Association representatives report an increasing number of people falling ill after drinking from the Mbarali River, which they attribute to pollution from human activities in the river catchment. They note that fish are no longer as easily found and worry that plants, animals, and their habitats will soon no longer receive the water necessary to sustain them.
“If this continues,” warned Winfred Mbugu of Sokoine Univeristy of Agriculture, “the amount of water available for each person will continue to drop, and we could arrive at a ‘zero-flow’ situation—meaning the river could dry up entirely.”
In response, Tanzania’s National Environmental Management Council and the Sokoine University of Agriculture will be undertaking a project on assessing the current status of the river and implementing measures to ensure environmental flows remain at recommended levels in the Mbarali River catchment. Studies on and implementation of environmental flows—or e-flows—are primarily concerned with the fair sharing and sustainable use of water resources. The project proponents will first assess water resource conditions and user demands in the Mbarali catchment to determine required management interventions. Next, they will apply the management recommendations to improve both the quantity and quality of water supplied by the river.
The initiative is being funded by the Global Environment Facility through the Implementation of the Strategic Action Programme for the Protection of the Western Indian Ocean from Land-Based Sources and Activities (WIO-SAP Project), executed by the Nairobi Convention. This project aims at reducing land-based stresses on this environment by protecting critical habitats, improving water quality, and managing river flows. The Convention, part of UNEP’s Regional Seas programme, serves as a platform for governments, civil society, and the private sector to work together for the sustainable management and use of the Western Indian Ocean’s marine and coastal environment.
The project will apply the newly-released Guidelines for the Assessment of Environmental Flows for the Western Indian Ocean, which have developed a standardized, region-wide approach to conducting environmental flows assessments to enable learning and harmonized approaches to Eflows across the region. The Guidelines, whose development and production was requested by Nairobi Convention states, were developed by the UNEP–Nairobi Convention, the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association and the Sokoine University of Agriculture. They will be used by governments, researchers, civil society, and communities managing water resources.
If successful, the e-flows demonstration project could significantly improve the lives of Tanzanians in the Rufiji catchment. “Improved water quality and flow can sustain biodiversity downstream and ensure that the water is again safe to drink beyond supporting other demands by local communities”, noted Jared Bosire, United Nations Environment Programme-Nairobi Convention Project Manager. “Communities can profit from better and more predictable water flow for their crops and fishing.”
The impacts of the project may also be felt far away from Mbarali. As Jerome Ansgary Kayombo of the National Environment Management Council explained, “the project could help us review regulations and laws regarding e-flows.” Professor Japhet Kashaigili of Sokoine University of Agriculture agreed, adding that “we are trying to come up with a clear implementation protocol on e-flows, i.e. scalable lessons that can be applied one by one to other catchments until the entire country is covered.”
WIO-SAP is working ‘to reduce impacts from land-based sources and activities and sustainably manage critical coastal-riverine ecosystems through the implementation of the WIO-SAP priorities with the support of partnerships at national and regional levels’. The project builds on the WIO-LaB Strategic Action Programme (SAP) for the protection of the WIO Region from land-based sources and activities that was developed under the auspices of the GEF-UNEP WIO-LaB project and which identified key actions that need to be undertaken in the region in order to reverse the degradation of the coastal and marine ecosystems.
For more information on this project, please contact the Project Manager, Jared Bosire (jared.bosire@un.org), or the Public Information Officer, Angela Patnode (angela.patnode@un.org). Additionally, please access the project on the Nairobi Convention website and the dedicated project page on iwlearn.net.
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